Wednesday, March 28, 2012

colons gone wild x2

tonight we went out for mexican food at our favorite little place in town. this gives me mixed feelings because i love the food there and i like the unpretentious environment, but usually, it doesn't take long for that bean burrito and queso dip to work their magic on my colon. my honey likes to go walking after we eat so that the food doesn't just settle straight down into our butts and thighs. however, this prospect fills me with fear and trepidation all because of that one time.

that one fateful night... at walmart.

knowing that after a big meal, i often need to make a rapid run to the ladies room, i usually prefer for our post-dinner walks to be in places with convenient facilities and on this particular night, we were at walmart. it wasn't so much a shopping trip as an exercise in loitering. since chris and i don't care to loiter in the same regions of walmart, i was in the hosiery area and he was off looking at electronics or movies or something more manly than knee highs and toe socks.

suddenly, i felt the gurgle of doom. i had a spike of adrenaline, knowing what was coming. i speedily dialed chris' cell number and in a panicked voice, asked where he was because i needed to get brooke to him as quickly as possible. i hate it when i have to take her with me into a public bathroom stall, especially when it's not going to be just a quick pee. and this - good lord, i could HEAR the rumbles - was not going to be a quick pee. i was starting to run in chris' direction. i was pushing brooke in the shopping cart at breakneck speed, dodging racks and unsuspecting citizens and hoping that i could avoid any collisions because i was pretty sure that if i ran into anyone, i would then have the dubious honor of dying from a butt explosion amongst the cheap outer wear and rain ponchos.

i caught sight of him heading my way and with hardly a thought, i shoved the cart containing my child -who was holding onto the rungs in a white knuckled grip- in daddy's direction, did a rapid course correction and made a bee line for the bathroom. i'm not much of a runner, so it wasn't smooth or fluid, certainly not like anything you'd see in a nikes commercial. i was holding a boob in each hand to keep them from flapping willy nilly between my neck and my navel as i gallumped between racks of flip flops and magazines. i had a look of sheer terror on my face and i knew that i looked insane, but i figured that was a preferable alternative to crapping my underpants as i ran between customers in the self check out aisles.

i thought i was going to make it. i was on the home stretch, racing past customer service, shimmying through tiny cracks between meandering rednecks all the while, my eyes were glued to the door of the ladies room. there was no cleaning cart parked out front. good sign. there wasn't a long line hanging out the door. great. but then, i felt it. that hot, horrifying liquid on my backside telling me that i was too slow. that my thigh churning, heart pounding rampage through the store wasn't enough to save my dignity. or my underwear.

i skidded through the doorway and nearly crashed straight into a woman who was the second in a line of two women. oh shit. i couldn't wait. i was about ready to belly flop to the floor and slither under a stall to join the unsuspecting piddler on the other side of the wall in hopes that i could wrestle the funky toilet from her butt's grasp. but then i saw that the woman directly in front of me was doing a pee pee dance. and she was very obviously pregnant. i understood that a full-bladdered pregnant woman always trumps others in line in a bathroom, so i couldn't just bash past her for the next available commode. i had to wait my turn.

thankfully, the first lady in line saw the distress of lil miss preggers and she let her go first. then she was standing beside me while i struggled unsuccessfully to contain the need to twitch like a junkie in need of a fix while clenching my anus like it's only ever been clenched that one time at bible study.

i'm sure my aroma was filling the small space all too well and since i probably looked and was acting completely nuts, the woman at the front of the line was gracious enough to also give up her space to me. most likely she thought from the stink of me that i was a homeless wackjob and she didn't want to witness me losing my head and flinging dung like a monkey in the wally world bathroom. whatever the case, i didn't look the gift toilet in the mouth so i raced into the middle stall, dropped my dirty pants and planted my ass firmly on the seat without even checking it visually or covering it in paper first. i figured that what i was bringing to the table was probably worse that whatever had been there before i arrived.

if i had tried to cover the seat in paper, i'd have realized that there was no paper. of course there wasn't. because on the day of my most shame-filled pooping experience, what would serve to make the event more memorable than to poop out 12 lbs of sludge only to have no paper with which to wipe my rump. i knocked politely on the stall beside me and asked if she might have a square or two of paper that could be spared for a poor, needy neighbor. no response. maybe she was trying to ignore me in hopes that what probably sounded and smelled like dysentery wouldn't travel into her corner of the bathroom. i tried the other side and was told that she was fresh out too.

i dug through my purse and found a lonesome, linty tissue hiding under a tampon and a cracked lollipop in the bottom of my purse. i used it to the best of my ability, but it was sorely lacking. after some thought, i pulled off my pants that were blessedly cleanish, peeled off my undies and then redressed myself. i was never more thankful than at that moment that i'd made the switch from team thong to team granny panty. at least that gave me a buffer in my moment of leaking distress and they also provided me with more surface area to use as toilet paper.

then the problem of what to do with the soiled skivvies. there was no pad disposal box. i debated flushing them, but if they plugged the toilet and caused an overflow, i would feel guilty as well as mortified. there was no toilet paper in which to wrap them, so i settled for grasping them tightly in my fist with the cleanest bits i could find turned toward the outside. i steeled myself for the walk past the ladies in waiting and straight to the trash can. i knew i smelled like a walking dirty diaper, but there was nothing to be done but get through it as quickly as possible. into the trash they went and then i covered them with a layer of paper towels before i went and scoured my hands and arms with the hottest water on tap, as well as large quantities of soap.

i didn't make eye contact with any of the women who were unfortunate enough to be in there at the same time as me. i just kept my face aimed at the ground and marched out of the bathroom. i coated myself in anti-bacterial gel while i wound my way back to the company of my loved ones. we left the store right after that and it wasn't spoken of again. because things like this should really be kept to yourself and never ever shared with anyone.

I was laughing so hard (while sneaking a read at work) that I was literally crying. I have not laughed so hard at a story in a while. OHMYGAWD this was funny!!! I probably laughed so much because it's happened to me, too.The horror of thinking you can pass a teeny weeny bit of gas to ease the pressure, only to have something warm slide down your leg.Thanks so much for your wonderfully wacky, hilarious blog. I absolutely adore it and read it every single day.

isn't it awful! i wish i could claim it was fiction. alas....i held this story in reserve for years before i was willing to share it with anyone but my best friend who i know can relate. when i finally wrote it, i had to text her and tell her that i wrote the horrible walmart pooping story.

knock on wood--and knock on it again--this hasn't happened to me yet. I'm usually the idiot in the car, hunched over and rocking as I drive home desperate to make it. Somehow I always make it! It's the peeing I have the most problem with now.

OH dear, I can SOOOO relate to this - as well as the peeing problems. It reminded me of a time when the kids were younger and we went on a day trip. On the ride home we had the son, wearing pants but no undies, the daughter, wearing fresh diaper but no pants, me with jeans covered in pee (NOT my own) and hubby, fresh as a daisy!!

Oh. my. word. I was reading this CRINGING. I would have let you ahead of me in the line - you can definitely tell when someone seriously needs to get in there before you. I may have died of mortification. My favorite part was the sprinting holding the boobs move. This whole story was hilarious - and you told it so well. lol

i'm sooo glad it's a repeat of the story and not of the event. i'm sorry you had to be one of the unfortunately folks who was here for both rounds of my colon issues.how was your mexican tonight? spicy? for your mouth, not your butt, i hope.

No worries. It was Walmart. Would anyone have noticed?Many's the time I've blundered into a stray fart cloud in the frozen foods section.

My brother (really, my brother) once found himself between our sister's and his house when a "crap attack" struck. He knew he would never have made it because he was right in the middle between the two houses and he wouldn't have felt right knocking on a stranger's door to ask if he could void his bowels. So, he shat himself. He told me that the half a second that he felt relief was worth the discomfort he felt as he drove the rest of the way home. And he drove a stick (with all that clutch shifting). It's a longer story than that, but I need to stop.All of a sudden I have to poop.